By: Bogdan Sajovic
Slovenian Bolsheviks have a hard time accepting the loss of the government, which is why we are witnessing constant dramas. One of the more resonant ones are the bitter tears of former foreign minister Tanja Fajon, who missed out on a high position in Brussels.
Let us recall that Fajon spent most of her career in the centre of the EU, partly as a correspondent and partly as an MEP. When she became foreign minister, she boasted that she would connect Slovenia with the core of Europe, where she supposedly knows everyone. Well, nothing came of that, but she did devote herself to diplomacy in Central Asia and Africa – including the African Sahel region, which has no relevance for Slovenia, as it is one of the most underdeveloped parts of the world, where the population allegedly has an average IQ of around seventy.
But Fajon apparently felt quite comfortable there – in the land of the blind, the one‑eyed man is king, and so on. So comfortable that she sought the position of EU Special Representative for the Sahel, a post that, by the way, comes with three hundred thousand euros a year plus various benefits. Fajon celebrated the appointment in advance, and the compliant left‑leaning media sang her praises, until the drama followed.
It turned out that no one in Slovenia even knew she had nominated herself. It turned out that under her ministership Slovenia increased its annual aid to the region sixfold, and finally, that she was nominated by her own assistant at the foreign ministry – without authority and outside all official procedures. As a reward, Fajon arranged an ambassadorial post for her former subordinate. The scandal was so big that Brussels withdrew Fajon’s candidacy.
Drama followed, and in her offended stomping, Fajon claimed that nothing was wrong, saying that such a method is supposedly normal. Excuse me? A former foreign minister claims that it is standard practice to propose chosen individuals for high diplomatic and international posts outside all procedures, without any authority, preferably in a system of reciprocal favours – I scratch your back, you scratch mine? After such an admission, Janša’s government certainly has free hands to review all appointments of recent years, revoke them, and dismantle the corrupt and nepotistic nest in Mladika…
